The Love Story of Wash & Vera

Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending the day with Ena(ena=my grandma)She had an eye appt in Tulsa at 8:15am so my cousin brought her up Monday afternoon to make getting her to her appt a little easier.

We had dinner then played some dominoes and chit chatted into the night-I find these types of visits with ena extra special and precious-she is in the begining stages of Alzheimers...

We arrive at the Dr appt and are 3rd in line-"YAY" I say to myself and as the office starts to fill up and people start getting called back I say to myself "hey we were here before you,You and YOU" so we wait an hour and finally her name is called-a quick exam and we are told to wait for an open room to see the Dr 45 mins later we are put in a room-where.we.wait.and.wait.and.wait!

At this point I am NOT a happy camper and I am taking full advantage of the fact that ena only has one good ear and I start saying "I am going to tell EVERYONE I know that asks me for an eye specialist referral to NOT come to Mt Point eye clinic" of course I said that statement into her bad ear so I had to repeat it even louder-one Nurse had the nerve to glance my way I gave her the 'stink eye'

I decided to take advantage of the situation and asked ena to tell me how her and papa met-this is the Love Story of Washington John and El Vera Annie...retold in her words as she told it to me...

"When I was around 18 I cleaned houses,I stayed with the people and did their cooking,laundry and house work. I got Thursdays and Sundays off. I made $6-7 dollars a week. On our days off my friends and I would meet at the corner drugstore and we would put a dress on layaway and a pay a dollar a week until we had it paid off. We would also meet some of the army boys and my friend Christine had a steady one and they were getting married.

Christine's boy had a friend named Wash and Wash was asked to look after Christine while her new husband went back overseas. Christine calls me and says do you want to go out tonight we have an extra guy-so we all go out Wash with Christine(as friends) and me and another boy and that was it.

About a month later I got a phone call from Wash saying he was going to be in town that weekend and asked me out and I told him I didn't know if I could-he told me to ask off and we would meet at the corner drugstore.

So I meet him and he tells me we gotta wait because I have a date with another girl too-(when ena said this I cracked up....ahhh my papa the straight up G)-well we wait and wait and the girl never shows up and we go on our date. He continued to call me when he was on leave and we would go out. Then he asked me to marry him and he goes and gets the marriage license and he finds out he has to go over seas...

I told him NO I would not marry him untill he came home-he tried to tell me that he WAS coming back but I said NO-not until you come home-see Gina back then girls would marry these army guys just for their money but not me...so he comes back and he had to get another marriage license and we got married on Dec 19th. He told everyone how many of you had to buy 2 marriage licenses just to marry your wife...

They then got on a bus and took a 3 day bus ride to Coffeyville Ks to spend the Holidays with papas family. Pa's sister Bessie and her husband George worked at a college and they were on break and had the only car in the family so they took us back to San Antonio to meet my mom and dad and so I could get all my stuff.

We made it back to Oklahoma where 3 couples me and Pa,George & Bessie and Joe & Daisey all lived in the garage on George and Bessies place-this was before they had built the house-George divided the garage into 3 sleeping quarters-our bedroom was in the kitchen.

We eventually moved into an old run down house on the river-I didn't like staying in that house when Pa was gone...Now you know my life story she tells me"

So there ya have it that is how my papa and ena met-No big wedding,never meeting the inlaws I don't think papa and ena ever had a fight-they lived in a very different time-some of my best childhood memories revolve around those 2.

3hours and 15mins later we walked out of that friggin eye clinic-I was happy to get the Love story BUT I am still NOT referring anyone ever to that place!

My confession for today: I just got a call from middle beans school-they want to suspend him for 3 days-In the words of the great hair band Ratt...I am fixin to go Round N Round with some school officials!